The wives of Henry VIII, of England were:
1. Catherine of Aragon (December 16, 1485–January 7, 1536; Spanish: Catalina de Aragón) was Henry VIII of England's first wife. Henry annulled his marriage to her after she had borne him a girl, Mary I. She could not produce a male ("Henry's Great Matter") and their marriage was annuled, against Papal orders, starting the schism between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.

Anne Boleyn

2. Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke and Queen Consort of England ( 1505/1507 – May 19, 1536) was the second wife and queen consort of Henry VIII and the mother of Elizabeth I of England who would become Queen. Born into the English aristocracy, Anne was educated in France from 1514 until 1521. Returning to England in 1522, she caught the eye of Henry VIII who proposed marriage to her in 1527. An intellectual who believed in the Divine Right of Kings and certain aspects of the new Protestant religion, Anne played a major role in the English Reformation. She was crowned in 1533, but after the birth of her eldest daughter that same year she failed to successfully carry another pregnancy to term. She was falsely accused of adultery and treason in order that the King could marry someone else in 1536; she was beheaded by a French swordsman on the 19th May. Before her death, she joked that, "I heardsay the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck."

3. Jane Seymour Queen Jane (c. 1509 — October 24, 1537) was the third wife of King Henry VIII of England. She gave him his only male heir, later Edward VI, but died shortly after his birth.

4. Anne of Cleves also known as "The Mare of Flanders" (see below) (September 22, 1515 - July 16, 1557) was the queen consort of Henry VIII of England from January 6, 1540 to July 9, 1540. She agreed to have an annullment, claiming the marriage hadn't been consummated , and she was given a generous settlement, including Hever Castle, former home of Henry's former in-laws the Boleyns.

5. Catherine Howard (1520/1525? - February 13, 1542) was the fifth queen consort of Henry VIII of England 1540-1542, sometimes known as "the rose without a thorn." After annulment of marriage, she was beheaded at the Tower of London on 10 February 1542. The night before, Catherine spent hours practicing how to lay her head upon the block, and her last words were for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. She was buried next to her cousin Anne Boleyn.

Catherine Parr

6. Catherine Parr (about 1512 - September 7, 1548), also spelled Katharine, was the Queen Consort of Henry VIII of England 1543-1547; the last wife of his six. She has a special place in history as the most married queen of England, having had four husbands in all.

Mistresses

• Lady Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn
• Elizabeth Blount, mothered Henry's firstborn son, Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, whom Henry acknowledged.

Henry had many other short-term mistresses, most of whom are unknown. He kept many of them in his private mansion called Jordan House and when his male courtiers said, "The King has gone to the Jordan," it meant that he was discreetly visiting one of his mistresses. Aside from Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount, the only other two who are known by name are Lady Herbert (who he may briefly have slept with sometime around 1510) and Margaret Shelton (1535). There were also persistently others between 1510 and 1527, when he fell in love with Anne Boleyn and then again between 1533 and 1536.

A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's wives is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived." An alternate version is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded."

Some may dub these as misleading doggerel, and that Henry was never technically divorced from any of his wives, rather that his marriages to them were annulled. Likewise four marriages — not two — "ended" in annulments, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, one could argue according to the technicalities of annulment, were never his wives at all.

Accordingly, their executions could be said to have been for reasons 'divorced from divorce'; particulaly in the case of Catherine Howard, who (perhaps understandably) sought extramarital comforts. Anne Boleyn remains a sympathetic figure; mostly for her bad luck (unable to produce a male heir), and her early stature as a vocal female, who was dared to have expressed herself forcefully in political matters.